The final year of a trilogy: Teleporter Con

[lathany]

The short version:

• The Living God - Defeated by chrisvenus Minigun.
• Fudge (made on the shop premises) - We ate so much there was a commission bag.
• Seagulls - All the cars were covered in bird shit by the end of the week.
• The Prana Row - Apparently, nothing is more likely to prompted the party's mad scientists to experiment than the knowledge that the last three people doing so died horribly wiping out several major population centres in the process.
• Betrayal at House on the Hill - I killed things. A lot.

The Very Long Version
OK, it's long. But not quite up to Ottavio's standards.

Venue
It's quite difficult to judge the venue objectively as it was far worse than the previous one (or the one before), but we couldn't have afforded last year's again. The price of holiday homes that can house a group our size (17) has been rising and therefore it's getting much more difficult to find something suitable that most people can still afford. So bearing that in mind, I would say it was OK, but with good and bad points.

The main bad points were the the lack of washbasins in the communal toilets, the flakiness of the boiler (which constantly needed rebooting when the heating was on) and that there was not a third general room for GMing. The small number of parking places (seven for a twelve bedroomed house) could have been a real issue had not two_nukes cunningly found somewhere free nearby. The kitchen was the smallest yet, but functional. The bedrooms were fine and some were ensuite - but nothing to write home about. (and the odd one had problems - such as chrestomancy's curtainless window for which he stood the spare bed on end.)

Top of the list of good points was the nearness of shops (we could buy milk and stuff at short notice) including an excellent fudge shop and various fish and chip places. The others included that the house did serve our needs, that the floors were pretty soundproof to each other (although not necessarily to the seagulls outside) and that we did indeed have a gorgeous view out to the sea. And, most importantly, that we could afford it.

Day by Day
I'm going to write this day-by-day and have a roleplaying and non-roleplaying section where applicable.

Saturday
The journey down was mostly smooth and straightforward (although why did it have to be one of the two best weather days?!), although I had difficulty locating the house right at the end. This had been spotted by leathellin in advance, but I hadn't followed her emailed correction sufficiently carefully. (I think that was my main complaint about the pre-holiday info, there should have been location instructions as it was difficult to find). However, we got there in the end to find ao_lai and AJ had arrived just beforehand. Despite keybox instructions (including the combination), it took us ten minutes to locate and another ten minutes to open. However, we finally got inside and into the room ballot.

Another car or two later and the shopping arrived (leathellin cunningly arranged for two deliveries across the week) and that got unpacked as people slowly drifted in. Alcohol was opened, Guitar Hero was set up and the first evening began with tortillas (bateleur's contribution, of course).

Sunday
Walking, roleplaying, eating.

Morning
As the trio of mad joggers (wildrogue, quisalan and chrestomancy) returned with sand in their trainers, leathellin and I set out for a walk. We discovered that Ilfracombe generally doesn't get up before 10, but also found Crazy Golf (see Wednesday for further details), a Co-Op, the fudge shop, various chemists, cafés and all sorts of fish and chip shops. We found an exciting sign directed us "To Secret Garden", but sadly it no longer existed (or was too secret for us). We also took a look at the harbour and the coast.

Roleplaying - Day 1 of 5
The session began with the various new characters being introduced - Lucien (LJ), Sakhar (shadowjon) and Calham (ar_boblad). We were informed that there was a siege taking place and that a weapon had been developed against demons called the Wheel of Hiertazian which there might be more information about in Rochemeer (aka Home of the Alchemist). The group split (fairly) promptly into three - a Rochemeer party, an Old Capital (Luintor) party and a siege party. As a tank commander, I was in the last of these along with Lew (two_nukes), Severin (jezzidue) and The Khan Prince (AJ).

The siege party arrived at the place expected to be under attack (Fort Khemerin) and heard about The Living God (aka The Biggest Bad) who was building an army in Vu Nadoine (the next big city to the West), the Great Death in Tuinac (the city south of Vu Nadoine) and that a couple of fair sized villages/towns (Hegensburg and Brazmere) had also been wiped out (by famine and raider respectively).

Incidentally, a map of the whole campaign can be found over here.

We had a dinner party that evening at which some of the local nobles complained about how the Living God was not gathering an army to march upon us and then settled in for the night. Whereupon we were attacked by a large band of assassins. In our night clothes (except for Severin who stopped to put his armour on). We eventually won the fight (despite better trained opposition - only the Prince in our party had Master Swordsman) and discovered that the Baron of the place had only just survived his portion of the attack. After some investigation we discovered that they had teleported in via a portable teleporter which now had its prana battery drained. One of the local nobility was responsible (he was taking ordered from the Living God through an artifact) and he was promptly transferred to the dungeon. His information included details of enemy troops at Brazmere (at the chrestomancy-named Rats Nest), so we promptly rode over (it's half way between Fort Khemerin and Vu Nadoine) and wiped them out. To our dismay they had superior weapons (steel to our iron) which did not bode well for our experiences at the hands of the full army. A family rode in and after confirming their innocence, they told us that the had escaped Vu Nadoine after giving the Living God a minor artifact acquired from Tuinac. In parallel with the fighting, Lew took an airship to survey Vu Nadoine and he determined that the army had not yet gathered, so was some time off attack. It was, however, collecting a great deal of wood. And there ended day one.

Evening
Dinner was a roast dinner produced by LJ. After dinner were the usual games and the usual chrestomancy sitting in the corner with the DS playing Advance Wars.

Monday
Roleplaying and much red meat.

Morning
It was Fried Breakfast day, courtesy of ar_gemlad. Sausages, egg, sausages, bacon, sausages, mushrooms and so on. jezzidue was reminded of the huge slab of meat he had brought (he cooked steaks for everyone who wanted one for lunch and there was still plenty left over). Players gradually appeared and then the second day of roleplaying began.

Roleplaying - Day 2 of 5
After the information at the end of the last session, the four of us decided to head for Tuinac (much to chrestomancy's disgust - he'd prepared for us to go to Mezonde to find more support for the battle (and for Severin's claim to the throne)). We saw wood being taken from the nearby forest, presumably to Vu Nadoine . The city was indeed devastated, with no plant or animal life. Well, apart from corrupted creatures. We made our way to the prana source and encountered the first threat of the session - the Giant Bat. Several rounds of combat later, we were victorious and got to have a better look around. We found prana tech devices and also some letters - correspondence from Hiertazian (aka the Wordy One) to Ottavio. Hiertazian was detailing various dubious-sounding prana experiments he had carried out to Ottavio (who he addressed as an expert on artifacts). We were instantly suspicious that the fall of Tuinac had been the work of whatever Ottavio was doing in response / at the same time.

Hiertazian's work was on prana. He wrote that he deduced that the prana tech was the work of a non-human and partially aquatic race. He mentioned that he had found a tome in Sretburg on the science of ores and metals written by someone "probably from Rochmere" (ie. probably that dratted Alchemist) and we deduced that it was this which had been used to produce the superior weapons that the Living God's army were using. Whilst in Sretburg, Hiertazian met with the local tribes and was briefly interested in their information. Hiertazian also mentioned that artifacts got their power from "sprites" and these sprites converted prana to mana or magic.

All-in-all, we concluded that Hiertazian may well have followed in the Alchemist's footsteps in every sense. Having apparently exhausted the plot in Tuinac we went on to Mezonde and finally got down to that politicking that chrestomancy expected.

Mezonde had a bunch of factions - most of them descendants of the people who had Severin's grandfather assassinated. These were the Von Tuinac family (who would have inherited the throne if not for the icky problem of needing to spend a night beforehand in the ancestors tomb - the one in the dead city), the Lammart family (of whom the oldest member - Naraya - was the War Minister of the Parliament), the Eberhard family (who, like the Lammarts formed part of the Council), the Mayor (Vincenze Odarasa) and the Baron of the Slums (Diethelm). Plus I also have Marchess Grego and Marchess Louis Vareen on my sheet (yeah, I got lost in the politics). Mezonde had a water problem - one of the rivers no longer flowed. The daughter of Count Von Tuinac (Lucilla) found us and suggested that sorting it out might improve Severin's standing. So we visited the Slums, got some guides to take us up river and Severin took a liking to the Slum Baron and gave him some money to improve conditions.

We headed up river and discovered a dam had been erected (in a non-expert fashion). Lew brought the dam down as carefully and slowly as possible. We returned to the city to discover that the Slum Baron had used the money to start civil war. We headed to the Von Tuinac home, discovered the dead head of family, that the steward had been possessed by the family artifact and was trying to kidnap Lucilla. The Prince destroyed the artifact, I rescued her (and gained a NPC for some sessions) then caught up with the others storming the empty but guarded Palace. This put power to the Slum Baron (who had kidnapped Lucilla's seven year old sister and wanted Lucilla killed) and Severin and let us into the palace. Within the building was a prana source and a teleport network which allowed us to meet up with the other two parties in Jaste-Sur-Fein and Praujon.

Evening
Our roleplaying group finished before the other two, so two_nukes and I went on a walk up the nearby hill and then on to check his car and a brief look around the local art-craft market. Dinner was burgers (many thanks to wildrogue).

Tuesday
Roleplaying, risotto and Arkham.

Morning
bateleur and I went for a walk to the cash point and generally around the town before game time.

Roleplaying - Day 3 of 5
The players met up to swap information and prepare for a fight. It appeared that the teleporter network had working points at Mezonde, Jodmeer, Luintor, Jaste-Sur-Fein and Praujon.

On the information front, parts of Hiertazian's Wheel had been found along with the dead body of Hiertazian himself. Various of his dead companions (who were once The Circle) were also found. The Alchemist's house had been searched and many dead bodies (and an evil plant) had been found.

There was a creature defending the prana source in, I think, Jaste-Sur-Fein which was a swarm of dark enemies but the key fighter would jump from one body to another. Bringing in all the fighters meant it was finally defeated.

After the fighting came the new party split. Keen to get Lucilla away from the Slum Baron and Severin (who Lucilla now hated for supporting said Slum Baron), Troy went south to Praujon... only to find Severin had also decided to come along. The Prince and Lew remained in Mezonde and dealt with the civil war. The remaining group started in Jaste-Sur-Fein to bring the airship parked there south.

The Praujon party was Troy, Severin, Laurel, Gio and Lucien. The city itself was empty - but did still have plants and animals. We found the source to Praujon hidden behind a basement wall with strange symbols. We found council records suggesting that the city had sent troops to Sretburg but had been wiped out shortly afterwards. Then we decided to take a look outside.

Outside was a tribe who considered the city evil and wanted no-one to go in or out. They said that the city had been attacked by its own returning army. We traded horses and decided to leave a message for the approaching airship and travel to Sretburg on foot.

Evening
Dinner was chicken and mushroom risottos (from leathellin). The evening was my token game of Arkham (for which corrections/additions appreciated!). We played with some expansions - Dulwich plus various others that we didn't properly strip out. The players were AJ (the Silver Lodgist), LJ (the soldier), metame (who I seem to remember had serious san issues) and me (I played the doctor). We played against Cthulhu and beat him - very satisfying.

Wednesday
As per usual, this was the day without roleplaying.

The morning was Crazy Golf - bateleur, chrestomancy, jezzidue, AJ and I played. The course was uneven, full of little tunnels and buildings and, in short, a lot of of non-skill-requiring fun. There was much laughter, particularly at hole 11 which included a downhill slope with a tunnel at the top and I enjoyed it muchly (not least, 'cos I won).

The afternoon was AJ's board game (the name of which I've forgotten but I think it had "Rune" in the title). It wasn't a bad game but suffered from being the sort of game that you can lose in the first hour of six.

Dinner was lasagne (from wildrogue) - I want the recipe for the vegetarian (lentil) one.

The evening was my introduction to Betrayal at House on the Hill. The first mission was the growing blob with quisalan as the traitor and shadowjon, lanfykins, AJ and chrestomancy and myself as the good guys. I began by killing quisalan's character and then won (although we lost AJ on the way). The second game was the evil twins mission with no traitors - this time without shadowjon and chrestomancy. Again we won, only losing me.

Thursday
Roleplaying and fish and chips.

Roleplaying - Day 4 of 5
My new party travelled to Sretburg and there found the place mostly empty - but two pairs of warring families being watched by a set of flying blue monkeys (the intelligent/mischievous race called Magao, I think). There was a dinner party. It was explained that the army from Praujon had been called by Sretburg to help keep the peace, but the place had descended into civil war anyway. Not helped by an army turning up from Hochnin to fight the city. Apparently the Praujon army had then chased the Hochnin army home and beaten it. We deduced that the Sretburg army had been corrupted in Hochnin and plotted our onward journey there.

The journey to Hochnin included finding a man being chased by a party of men waving pitchforks. They explained he was a "Mocker" which turned out to mean cannibal. We found no proof and let him go (wrongly, it turned out), but were concerned by the discovery that cannibals had been operating in the area. We were even more concerned to discover that the word Mocker was fron Mockerin which seemed to be from Mormekrin.

Hochnin itself was where the other party had got to (they had found Hiertazian's house, but not his laboratory). The city was like Tuinac - no plants, no animals - and the prana source was utterly corrupted. Laurel, Milicia and I went hunting and found a temple to one of the Mormekrin gods - Regerork. There was within it signs of sacrifice and a tunnel leaving to outside. We decided not to mention it to Sasha (a follower of another Mormekrin God) without knowing a bit more about how many of the Gods might be evil.

The next stop for the combined parties (everyone but Lew and the Prince) was the volcano settlement Touetne. Here was Hiertazian's laboratory and the other half of the correspondence from Ottavio to him. These letters proved that Ottavio had fewer morals than Hiertazian, was more self-deluded and even more wordy.

Sasha meanwhile, off on a little look around, found followers of one of the other Mormekrin gods. She came back for me and Kerrith and, on arriving at their town Ressel, I discovered it was Regerork (who people objected to me calling the Cannibal God, so instead I'll call him the God of the Cannibals). What happened next involved some very poor dice rolls from Troy, but we got away in the end with the relevant artifact and got back to the others with a large number of cannibals in pursuit.

We then decided it was high time to head north. However, there was not airship space for everyone, so we returned to use the Praujon teleporter - and found it smashed up. Consequently Kerrith and his men marched to Luintor to use the teleporter there and the rest of us returned by airship to Mezonde. We arrived and activated the teleporter again - to discover that the Luintor band had only narrowly escaped death. The Prince and Lew informed us that the Living God was sailing to Roenfall (home!) and that we needed to go back. The big row about experimenting with prana happened. And again. And again. Boats and airships were taken.

Evening
It was fish and chip night (or pie and chip night in my case). I got to play another game of Betrayal at House on the Hill with quisalan, two_nukes, shadowjon and wildrogue. The mission was the two-headed snake and quisalan was the traitor (she brought chrisvenus in to play the other snake head). We won - although only I was left by then.

Friday
The end. And cake.

Morning
I ventured out to the fudge shop to get fudge for work and for the Reeve-sitters. leathellin, ao_lai and bateleur came along with similar plans in mind. The owners made fudge in the shop itself and you could watch them do it (or so the signs said). The fudge was awesome (Amaretto!) and people had been buying it and bringing it to the house all week.

Roleplaying - Day 5 of 5
The fighty people defended Roenfall with swords, tanks and things. The mad scientist types decided to do the experiments as detailed by one of those who died horribly. The result was Roenfall's first minigun. This was eventually used on the big bad to win the war. Once the Living God fell and the plans to deal with Fralanc's demons were made, peace was finally in sight. Well, perhaps for the next generation. And Troy was to be married to an Altekali Prince. Plus Lew and Laurel agreed (I think) to a marriage and a move to Altekal.

Evening
The evening meal was three courses provided by leathellin and wildrogue. Pea soup, chicken cooked in wine and the absurd cake as pictured over here.

Saturday
And then it was over. Packing, the food auction and photos. We drove home to find our cat both delighted and furious.

The end of a three year campaign. I'm missing it already.

(Note: Please let me know if I've got things wrong or spelled things wrong.)

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

the first evening began with curry

Oh no it didn't - that's what I made the previous year! :-P

Also, please could you change the above map link to this:

http://www.heffalumps.org/usr/dom/rpg/kings/online_map.jpg

...before the server explodes from the load!

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Done!

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Pedantry time...

Magower -> Magao
Mormycron -> Mormekrin
Altakal -> Altekal

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Replaced.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I think you mean 'prana translocation device' :)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I don't, but Troy does!

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

<laughs>

And I'm still trying to think what Cherna will send Troy and Sekhemkhet as a wedding present. It will count as a state wedding, after all...

[chrisvenus]

The prana source in Praujon wasn't actually behind that wall of buttons. It was the fountain itself. Though I'm not sure that makes any difference. ;-)